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Part I
Prelude to a Proposal
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1
Introduction
Why We Love Research Proposal Writing
Writing grant and fellowship proposals can be some of the most enjoyable writing in your academic career. Even for those of us who loathe writing (yet still havenāt made the connection that we perhaps chose the wrong line of work), proposal writing is a breath of fresh air in the suffocating schedule of writing assignments that never ends for academics. Proposal writing is akin to sitting down to compose the annual letter to Santa. It is possibly the most creative writing that we do as academicsāsome might even call it fiction writing. Where else can you lay out a beautiful, innovative, and elegant research plan uncomplicated by the realities of fieldwork, the drudgery of coding data, and all the other nuisances that make the best laid hypotheses and plans go awry? And letās talk about the payoff! Proposal writing does not end with a piece of work that in its highest glory is read by the twenty other people in your subfield. No, with proposal writing, you can earn cold hard cash. Who isnāt motivated by that? There is nothing sweeter in academia than getting the call or the e-mail message from an agency program officer exclaiming: āCongratulations! You have received an award!ā Besides getting tenure, not many things in your academic career will make you clap your hands and jump up and down with joy. Receiving a grant or fellowship does that. And proposal writing is the way to get there.
Academic research proposal writing is a unique genre unlike any other type of academic writing that we do. And for many scholarsāfaculty members and graduate students alikeāthe process of writing and submitting a proposal is shrouded in mystery. Few departments offer proposal writing courses, and students and junior faculty members donāt read proposals on a regular basis as they do journal articles and books. Several excellent proposal writing guidebooks are available (and we list our favorites throughout this book and in Chapter 15), but none of them cater to the academic humanities and social sciences (HSS). Faculty members in HSS in particular do not typically model grantsmanship for students and junior colleagues. In fact, many scholars in our disciplines write proposals secretly, not wanting to admit our ambitions in the humiliating event that our proposal will be rejected. Some of us sidestep rejection altogether by not writing grant proposals at all.
Like it or not, proposal writing and receipt of extramural funding is increasingly expected as part of a successful career in academe. State economies are squeezing higher education budgets, and federal funding for research has been stagnant, at best, for the past decade. The small pots of money for pilot studies or meetings, once available from your department or academic senate, have dwindled. At the same time, standards for landing a faculty job and achieving tenure have escalated at a steady clip. It doesnāt matter if you work at a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI) with a heavy teaching load or at a research-intensive university; new emphasis is being placed on grantsmanship and extramural funding across the disciplines. At academic job interviews, deans and department chairs will ask you about your grants and fellowship record. Some departments require an extramural grant for tenure. Colleges and universities are increasingly establishing Offices of Research Development and hiring proposal writing and research strategy experts to help catalyze more and better grants and fellowship activity by individual faculty and teams of researchers. For the majority of graduate students and new faculty members, writing proposals for grants and fellowships is an essential element of your academic career.
Our Target Audience and Terms Explained
Within this milieu of mounting expectations for grantsmanship in the HSS disciplines, within a highly competitive funding environment, this book is designed to help graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, new faculty members, and senior faculty members who have little experience with proposal writing. Our focus is on institutions of higher education/research and funding agencies and foundations in the United States, although much of our advice will also apply to funding opportunities from foreign sources. We understand that some readers of this book may not be affiliated with an institution or may be in a job title that does not make you eligible to apply for academic research grants. Generally speaking, you will need to have an affiliation at an accredited institution to apply for the majority of the grants and fellowships discussed here, although there are a few exceptions. Covering the humanities and social sciences in one book can sometimes be fraught with overgeneralization. However, proposal writing for these disciplines share more commonalities than differences.
As we will emphasize throughout the book, extramurally funded research is not limited to the Carnegie-classified āResearch Universitiesā anymore. Research funding is sought by scholars across the disciplines in all categories of institutions of higher education. In fact, many funding agencies and foundations take measures to ensure that their funding reaches a broad audience, including teaching-intensive and community colleges, where research activities and experiences often have a higher impact on low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented students and faculty members.
In this book we use the terms āgrantā and āfellowshipā somewhat synonymously; however, there can be important differences between the two and other types of funding that dictate how you apply and how the funds will be administered. These differences are discussed in more detail in Chapter 2. We also alternately use the terms āuniversity,ā āinstitution,ā ācollege,ā and ācampusā in this book to refer to any institution of higher education and/or research from which you may apply for research funding. This brings us to the term āresearchā itself. We will frequently use āresearchā as shorthand for any number of scholarly and creative activities funded by grants and fellowships across the HSS disciplines. Please forgive this oversimplification if you feel that the term does not capture your work.
Why Pursue Funding in the Humanities and Social Sciences?
Youāve bought this book, so do we really need to convince you? Probably not, but even among the faculty members and students who come to us for help, there are serious misgivings about their motivations for writing grant proposals. Based on conversations that weāve had with hundreds of scholars, there are endless reasons why you do not want to write a funding proposal. Here are some of the most common excuses:
- āFunding is not necessary for my research.ā
- āIt takes more time to find funding opportunities and write a proposal than it does to write a journal article, and I donāt get any credit in tenure and promotion for proposals.ā
- āThere is no funding out there for humanities and social sciences.ā
- āThey only fund superstars, not me.ā
- āNo one would fund my radical/controversial/cutting-edge/underappreciated research.ā
- āI hate writing.ā
- āI donāt want to face the pain of rejection.ā
- āI donāt want my colleagues to know Iām a failure.ā
Under these conditions of high risk for little reward, why should HSS scholars seek research funding?
Although many HSS researchers produce excellent and impactful scholarship with little or no funding, there are multiple ways that research funding can strengthen and enhance HSS research programs, faculty and student experiences, and their academic careers. For individual scholars, even small amounts of funding can provide invaluable benefits, particularly in this age of shrinking university budgets. Grants and fellowships can support various areas of your work.
Materials costs, such as:
- Travel (to fieldwork, archives, libraries)
- Research equipment (a scanner, digital camera, voice recorder, art supplies)
- Routine supplies and expenses for your research (paper, photocopying, telephone services)
- Book subventions and publication costs
Your time away from teaching and campus duties in various ways:
- Course buyout (release time)
- Summer salary
- Long-term residencies at other institutions
Students and research assistance:
- Student research assistant salaries and benefits
- Tuition and fees
- Funds for your studentsā research
Collaborative and public research:
- Meetings
- Conferences
- Workshops
- K-12 and public outreach and engagement
- Exhibits or productions with museums and theaters
Apart from the research activities and equipment that grants and fellowships can pay for, applying for funding can also benefit your career by increasing the visibility of your research program and scholarly output among your peers. When you submit a proposal for review at an agency, it will likely be reviewed by a panel of experts in your field and those closely related. Even if it is not initially funded, your name and research ideas will be introduced to a new set of scholars and agency personnel through the review process. When your project is funded, the research will be āadvertisedā on the agency website, as agencies typically highlight their latest awardees through press releases and website features. You may also be included in agency activities such as workshops and conferences. The increased visibility and the circulation of your research can lead to a higher profile in your discipline(s), more citations of your publications, increased contacts and networking within your discipline(s), the potential for new collaborative research activities with other scholars, and higher chances of subsequent funding. Winning grants and fellowships can also contribute to the reputation of your department and university. Many university-ranking organizations account for grants and fellowships in their calculations.
A final benefit of writing grant and fellowship proposals is that it can help you strengthen and sharpen your arguments, scholarly contributions, methods, and overall research program, regardless of whether you get funded. Grant writing improves your research and thinking as you go through the process of methodically and persuasively writing about your project for peer review. Funding agencies will often provide reviewer comments about your proposal, whether or not you are awarded funding. External reviews provide an excellent source of insight and validation of the project, provoking further improvement of your research and scholarship. Thus, the proposal becomes a road map for your work.
Whether your research takes place on a green bean farm in Burkina Faso, in the dim stacks of the Huntington Library Archives, or among environmental activists on the streets of Tokyo, a well-written proposal will come in handy when you begin the act of research itself. Being in the midst of research and fieldwork can be disorienting as the constant inflow of new information tests your assumptions, on the one hand, and numbs the mind on the other. Rest assured, you can always go back to your trusty proposal to see the forest for the trees and refresh your memory about what you said you were going to do in the first place.
Now that you are convinced that you need to compete for research funding and you know what kinds of things you want to fund, it is also important to assess and understand how research and its various forms fit into the arc of your academic career.
Putting Research in Its Place in Your Academic Career
To a large extent, the culture in your discipline, department, or university will dictate the timing of research and research grantsmanship in your career. For both graduate students and junior faculty, this culture (or more formal expectations) for research and research funding are often explained or prescribed by your department chair or advisor. It is always useful to talk with more senior faculty or graduate students in your program as well. Find out when they started submitting grant proposals, what sources of funding they sought, and their experiences with success and failure. Ask your mentors and more senior colleagues if they would be willing to share their research funding proposalsā both successful and unsuccessfulāso that you can begin to understand the differences between the two.
Sometimes, the patterns of grantsmanship for faculty can be less obvious. This is partly because different people begin their academic careers at different stages. It is increasingly common for junior faculty to begin an assistant professor appointment after a couple of years in a post-doctoral fellowship or as an adjunct professor or lecturer. Many faculty use this time to write or publish their first book or convert their dissertation chapters into published articles. As such, they are coming into their academic career with a different set of research needs and objectives than someone who started their assistant professor position the month after they filed their dissertation (yes, miracles still happen from time to time!).
As a junior faculty member, or even as early as the job interview, have conversations with your department chair, dean, and/or colleagues in your department to find out if such a culture exists at your university. Here are some key questions to ask about the expectations for grantsmanship in your department:
- Even if extramural funding is not necessary for your research, is extramural funding expected for tenure and promotion?
- Is a big and/or prestigious grant expected for tenure and promotion?
- What research funding is availab...
